Sunbathing is a means to acquire a robust healthy appearance, to socialize and to enhance production of vitamin D. To those seriously searching for the “perfect tan” as well as casual dabblers in the past-time, an annoying and persistent problem has been the difficulty in finding an even moderately comfortable position to expose side surfaces of the body, arms and legs to direct rays of the sun. Conventional beach chairs, along with lacking storage capability, do not have sufficient surface area to avoid sinking into soft support surfaces such as sand. Consequently, a need exists to provide a portable body support device that comfortably supports a user while providing easily accessible storage.
One approach to this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,906,018 (Kidwell), the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. Kidwell shows a body support including a central storage compartment. This approach is adequate in many ways, but suffers from several disadvantages. First, the compartment has limited storage capacity. Due to its location proximate the inward curve of the curved surface, the permissible height and depth of the interior space is restricted. There is, moreover, a limit on the amount of interior space that can be provided due to structural support concerns (i.e., preventing the unit from collapsing under the weight of a user). The larger the storage compartment becomes, the more susceptible the body support is to collapse. Second, the body support, in order to provide a user easy access to the storage compartment, must be set on a supporting surface such that the storage compartment is exposed. Third, due to its closed-ended structure, the body is only capable of individual use, and cannot be connected to other body supports to create a system of supports.